


The Second Hundred Years

by debwalsh



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Endgame, There’s room for everyone to have a happy ending, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 05:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18654277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: Spoilers for Endgame!This fills the C4 prompt of my Bucky Barnes Bingo card - I Regret Nothing-It also fills in the dark spaces and helps me make sense of Endgame.The moment is coming when Steve will carry the Infinity Stones back to their rightful times.  But another mission weighs heavily on him, a mission that could either result in great happiness, or a lifetime of misery and loneliness.Of course it would be Bucky who helps him make the decisions he has to make.Another bingo prompt selected by my amazing Patreon patron, Noukian!





	The Second Hundred Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Noukian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noukian/gifts).



> I know I have a time travel fix-it going that runs headlong into history and blows it to smithereens. This story takes a very different tack. Not gonna lie - this one made me cry as I was writing it. Sad and happy.

They broke apart, panting, sweating, laughing with the joy of being together, being alive.  Bucky rolled off, breath puffing as he wriggled into a comfortable position beside Steve. “God, I’ve missed this.  We didn’t get a chance to do anything before that shit show in Wakanda, and it was too goddamned long since you’d been by for a visit.”   
  
Steve rolled toward him, slipping his arms around Bucky’s waist and resting his cheek on Bucky’s sweaty breast.  “I’ve missed you.” He turned his face and placed a kiss on the damp skin there.   
  
Bucky smiled and brought his prosthetic arm around to massage Steve’s shoulder and arm.  “Mmmm. You didn’t find anyone else in the five years I was gone?”   
  
“Didn’t want anybody but you.  Never wanted anybody but you.”   
  
“Huh.  You know that’s not true,” Bucky corrected, turning to look at Steve as he played with his sweat-damp hair.   
  
“Never wanted anyone as much as you.”   
  
“Stoking my ego‘ll get you anything you want.  But you know I’m easy. For you, at least.”   
  
“Likewise. Always.”   
  
“So how come your friends don’t know anything about us? Pretty sure if anyone knew, it would be Wilson.  Or, you know, Nat.”   
  
It still hurt to think that Nat wouldn’t be coming back.  The Soul Stone wasn’t giving up either her or the Gamora that Thanos sacrificed.  He could only assume that the Guardians felt their loss as keenly as Steve and his friends felt Nat’s.   
  
But dwelling on their losses didn’t answer Bucky’s question, and Steve couldn’t deny it deserved an answer.   
  
“They pitied me enough that I’d lost my ‘best friend from childhood’.  I couldn’t take it if they’d known the truth.”   
  
“You’re not ashamed of me, are you, Rogers?”   
  
“Ashamed? Of you?  What are you, nuts?  I still can’t believe you chose me, Buck.  No, I’m not ashamed. I just want you to myself right now.  But soon ... we’re gonna make them sick, we’ll be so cute and sweet together.”   
  
“God, you’re a sap.”   
  
“Hell yes.”   
  
“So you gonna tell me about it?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“What was in that envelope Fury handed you.”   
  
“Yeah.  Kinda wanted some time to process it first.  But yeah.” Steve disentangled himself and walked over to the dresser to retrieve the large Manila envelope.  He grabbed the wipes container and brought both back over. He slid back onto the bed, this time propping himself up against the headboard.  Bucky levered himself up to a sitting position. Steve handed Bucky a wipe and the envelope. Bucky was torn, but he took the wipe and cleaned himself up first, then accepted the envelope.   
  
“This looks like -“   
  
“Peg’s handwriting.  Yeah. Apparently Nick’s had this for years, with instructions to give it to me on a specific date.  The date of Tony’s funeral.”   
  
“Fuck.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Do I wanna know what’s in here?”   
  
“I doubt you do.  It’s from Peg, written sometime after 9/11.  She was still with SHIELD then, but phasing out.  It’s instructions, kinda. For me to go back to 1970.”   
  
“Well, you were planning to go back to put the stones back in place -“   
  
“To live.  To stay. With her.  Married. Married to her.”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
“You know I love you, Buck.”   
  
“Yeah, I do.  I also know you got a big heart, with room enough for two.  But -“   
  
“But it’s part of history.  It’s something I already did in this timeline, and if I don’t go back and  do it -“   
  
“You spawn yet another variation to the timeline.  I get it. I prefer Back to the Future’s theory of time travel, but it looks like we’re stuck with this one.”   
  
“But if I go back, I’ll have a chance to put things right, get you out of Hydra control, save Howard -“   
  
“No.  You can’t.  You can’t change anything.”     
  
“But I can’t let you rot if I have a chance to save you -“   
  
“Gimme that,” Bucky commanded and took the envelope out of Steve’s hand, tugged out the thick pile of papers, and started to read, his lips set in a grim, tight line.  Frustrated and nervous, Steve settled with his head on Bucky’s shoulder, his arms going round Bucky’s middle again while Bucky read.   
  
“These are pretty damned detailed notes.  Practically a recipe. For how to live your life with Carter without changing the timeline.  Without creating a new reality.”   
  
“But if I have the chance -“   
  
“You change the timeline, you create a new reality. A reality without me.  The me I am now.” There were tears in Bucky’s eyes now, and he blinked them away.  “I love you, Steve.”   
  
“I love you, too, Buck.  That’s why -“   
  
“No. You don’t get it.  I love you enough to let you and Carter have your happily ever after.  But then it’s my turn. Which means you go to the past, you come back to me.  To me, not some other version of me. You come back to me or I swear to God, Steve, I’ll hang Hank Pym upside down until he makes enough of that fucking Pym Particle so I can go back in time and drag your sorry ass back here myself.  Do you get it? You come back to me.”   
  
“You actually expect me to go back in time, live a life with Peggy, and not do anything to save you?”   
  
“I do.  Because I’m here now, with you, in this impossible present, and I’m a selfish sonovabitch, Steve.  I want my turn at happiness, my turn at happily ever after. With you. Only you. I get that, I got no regrets.  None, you hear?”   
  
“Buck -“   
  
“You know what they say about us.  The serum -“   
  
“The way our cells regenerate, we could live a really long time.  But Buck, nearly 50 years -“   
  
“Fifty years of Steve Rogers keeping his head down and staying out of trouble.  Fucking miracle. Might bring about the end of the world. Fuck, Stevie, mighta already done that, y’know?”   
  
“I’m not that bad, Buck.”   
  
“Stevie, you really are.  But you know what? You really love me?  You wanna really prove that? You do this thing.  You go back, you live a life with Carter, a good life, a peaceful life, a long fucking life.  And you come back to me.”   
  
“You seem so certain.”   
  
“You know me.  I love this science shit.  None of your friends really know how much, but I had a long talk with Banner.  I think the science is sound. I’d prefer a nice, neat Back to the Future solution, but that’s not how it works.  We exist in a multiverse, where one significant change can cause a new reality. This tells us what you have to do.  So you have to do it, otherwise you automatically create a new reality. I want this reality. Where we’re in bed, just fucked each other senseless, where I get to look at that big, dumb mug and kiss you until I fall asleep in your arms.  A lot of bad shit has happened to me, to you, to both of us. This? This is good. So don’t take it away from me. From us. You do this thing, you come back to me. You promise me. You come back to me.”   
  
“I promise. Buck, I promise,” Steve swore, surging up to capture Bucky’s lips with his own.  Before long, the envelope and the papers were shoved aside to make room for more skin on skin, more push and pull.   
  
More Steve and Bucky.   
  
&&&   
  
Steve rested his head against Bucky’s chest, listening to the thump, thump, thump of his heart.  Tears trickled down his face, plinking softly onto Bucky’s skin while Bucky’s arms held Steve in place, his hands gently kneading his skin, his muscles.  The last week had been some of the most blissful moments of his life, lost in Bucky’s arms, his kisses, his body ... never had they ever indulged so frequently or so thoroughly in each other. Never had they had the opportunity, and now, they’d stolen the time because they both knew there might not be anymore after this.   
  
Steve closed his eyes to commit every sensation, every moment, every everything to memory.  He never had any trouble with memory, having been born with an eidetic memory that the serum had simply made more, but these moments were especially precious.   
  
They might be the last he ever had with Bucky.     
  
He’d made his promise.  He’d made his preparations.  Together, they’d done everything they could to cover every eventuality, every permutation.  It was fantasy, they both knew - they had no way of knowing what could happen over the course of 50 years.  But they comforted themselves with the delusion that they had a plan that would work. And now they just held each other in preparation for the moment when they couldn’t any longer.   
  
Steve wanted to make it back.  But a lot could happen in 50 years.  The world was a dangerous place, for normal people.  For someone enhanced, maybe they weren’t as vulnerable in some ways, but in others, they could be a target.  Steve Rogers didn’t know how to blend in, how to disappear into the crowd, how not to be, well, bigger than life.  He’d come out of the womb screaming like an infant three times his size, and he’d never learned how to shut up, with or without serum.   
  
But he’d have to.  To not change the timeline, to make it safely back to Bucky.  To ensure that Peggy held the position in history that was hers, and hers alone.   
  
The weight of time and responsibility pressed in on him, suffocating him, crushing him with its immediacy and importance.   
  
Then Bucky pressed a kiss to the crown of his head and whispered, “I will always love you.  Remember that. I don’t regret a moment we’ve spent together, punk. Not one. And I am so proud of you.  I love you. Til the end of the line, til the end of the world. Til the end of the fucking universe. I love you.”   
  
Steve couldn’t speak, his throat was so tight and closed with emotion.  All he could do was hug Bucky harder, and pray for strength, for resolve.     
  
Tomorrow would be the hardest day of his life.  Tomorrow he would say goodbye.   
  
&&&   
  
Bucky blinked back the tears that formed in his eyes as he watched Steve mount the platform and disappear into the past.  He felt his heart break then, the thousandth, millionth, billionth time since they first started planning this day.   
  
They’d taken every precaution they could, but he also knew Steve.  Knew how big his heart was, how fierce his spirit was, how desperate his need for justice and equality was.     
  
Dumb punk had such a penchant for trouble, he was genuinely worried that he’d just said goodbye to the love of his life yet again.   
  
And this time, there might not be a second-second chance.   
  
This time, it might really take.   
  
And then he turned, saw a figure seated on the bench at the lake that he hadn’t noticed before.   
  
And he felt his heart break in a whole new way.   
  
“Sam.”   
  
&&&   
  
As he stood back, allowing Sam his moment, Bucky couldn’t believe that everything they’d discussed, everything they’d planned, had come to fruition.   
  
Steve, back where he’d promised he’d be, at the time he’d promised to be there.  The shield, handed off to Wilson.   
  
He was really retiring.   
  
Bucky fingered the little box in his pocket, caressed the velvet lid with his thumb, scraped his finger along the hinge.   
  
An insurance policy, he’d told himself when he’d bought it while Steve had been busy with his preparations.   
  
A scream against the dark, a shout into the void.  A prayer to whatever deities still lived in this impossible world.   
  
He could hear the pleased incredulity in Wilson’s voice, and knew he’d accepted the charge.  No doubt Sam would be wondering why him and not Bucky, but it wouldn’t stop him. He’d make a good Captain America.  A Captain America to lead a world still healing into the future.   
  
And then Wilson turned back toward him, eyebrow arched curiously even as his forehead scrunched up in confusion.  Bucky’s smile deepened, and he stepped forward, drawn by the same magnetic pull that had kept him tethered to this idiot - his idiot - since the day they’d met all those years ago.   
  
“Steve,” he breathed.   
  
And there he was, his face lined with time spent with Carter, a life lived beyond his reach.  His heart clenched at the thought that maybe they’d miscalculated, that maybe he’d given away his own best chance at happiness.  But the smile on those beloved lips reached all the way to the sparkling blue of his eyes, glowed from within, and he knew then that even if his time with Steve was shortened, it was worth it for the happiness he carried in his heart.   
  
But he couldn’t help himself blurt out a question that echoed down the years to the first moments when Steve had found him on that cold table in Zola’s lab.     
  
“Is it permanent?”   
  
“What?”   
  
He waved his hand toward his own face, sketching lines in the air near his eyes.   
  
And Steve’s smile broadened further, lines crinkling deep and cheery.  “Oh. Fuck. No,” Steve shook his head, and looked down at his hand where he removed a ring that had been invisible until he removed it.  “Shit, I’ve been wearing this so long, I forgot I still had it on,” he explained, and looked up at Bucky with eyes full of mirth and love.  Eyes that looked a little more lived in, maybe, but eyes that still danced with youth and mischief. “I need to thank Strange for this - it worked perfectly.  No one ever guessed I wasn’t getting any older.”   
  
“Well, shit.  I guess you’re gonna want this back then, huh?” Sam asked then, thrusting the shield toward Steve.  Steve who looked as beautiful and young as he had when he’d stepped up onto the platform just a few minutes ago in Bucky’s time, but nearly fifty years ago in the course of Steve’s life.   
  
“Nah, it’s yours.  No givebacks. I got other plans.”  And then he took a step toward Bucky, and Bucky felt the thrill of recognition, the thrill of connection.  This was his Steve. Come back to him.   
  
They’d done it.   
  
“How was Grant Carter?” Bucky asked then, trying to keep the joy and the nerves out of his voice, yet knowing he failed miserably.   
  
“Grant Carter led a good life.  A happy life. He married an amazing woman, got to be stepfather to the wonderful children she’d had with her first husband Daniel.  Got to help. But stayed out of the public eye. Did what he had to do to finish the mission.”   
  
“Uh, who’s Grant Carter?” Sam asked.   
  
“Peggy Carter’s second husband.  Her first husband, Daniel Souza, died in the late ‘60s.  She remarried in 1971, but he was very private, and little is known about her second husband, and no good photographs exist.  But from all accounts, he made her happy,” Bucky replied.   
  
“And this is important because?”   
  
Steve smiled gently, nodding.  “Because he was me. And now I’m back to keep a promise.”   
  
“So ... um -“   
  
“So now it’s my turn,” Bucky said then, joy filling him from the inside and reaching outward so fiercely, he knew he had to be glowing like Danvers when she was in full power mode.   
  
“Your turn for what, Barnes?”   
  
Why was Sam still there?  Oh yeah, Bucky’s big, dumb, sweater-wearing dork had never told his teammates that he and Bucky were more than just really good friends.   
  
“For me to put a ring on it,” Steve said then, walking purposefully toward Bucky as he reached into his pocket to pull out a little velvet box.  Bucky huffed a laugh, hauling out his own prize. They each snapped their boxes open at the same time, both nearly giggling at the absurdity and the silly romance of it.   
  
“Is that -“   
  
“The Carter family ring.  Yes. Peg gave it to me to give to you.  She said thank you, Buck. Thank you for giving us our lives together.  She wanted you to have this. She said it brought her happiness with me, and she hoped it would bring you just as much if not more. She told her kids she was doing it, and they were okay with it.”   
  
“Wait.  You two are ... together?” Wilson squeaked.  It made Bucky laugh out loud, and he walked over to Wilson and clapped him on the back.   
  
“Yes, Sam.  Steve and I have been together since, what - 1935?”   
  
“Nah, ‘33. I was 15, you were 16.  It was the first time we admitted it, anyway.”   
  
“We had to be careful, and we were both scared.  Kept trying to swear off each other, but it never stuck.”   
  
“But we didn’t really get together until Buck was recovering in Wakanda.  We didn’t have much time together, but we made the most of it.”   
  
“That’s why you always looked so happy when you’d get back from your trips to Wakanda.  You were on a booty call?”   
  
“Sam, don’t you have some place to be?  My guy’s trying to propose here,” Bucky urged, not-so-gently.  “And I’d kinda like to have the chance to propose right back.”   
  
“Oh.  Oh, fuck, yeah.  So, um, congratulations?  And where do I apply to be best man? To one of you anyway -“   
  
“You’re giving him away.  Barton’s gonna be my best man.  Since Nat, you know. She’d approve, I think.”   
  
“Give me away?  What the hell, Buck?”   
  
“You already got to do the whole groom thing.  It’s my turn.”   
  
“We can both be grooms.  It’s the 21st century. We can both have best men.  Best persons.”   
  
“Okay, but maybe we should, you know, do the asking first.  So, punk - will you marry me?”   
  
“Always so competitive. Yes, jerk, I will marry you. So long as you agree to marry me back.”   
  
“Jesus, and who says romance is dead?” Wilson muttered to himself as he shook his head and started to wander away.   
  
“So Sam - be my best man?” Steve called.   
  
“Thought you’d never ask.  Damn, how the hell did we all miss this?” Sam continued muttering as he made his way back up toward where Bruce - Professor Hulk - stood at the time travel platform.   
  
And now they were just the two of them, and they closed the distance without thought, just suddenly there they were, standing in front of each other, hands drawn together as if completing a circuit.  “I’ve missed you so much. I had no idea how hard it was gonna be to wait 50 years to see you again. I thought I’d already lived through the worst, but ... I mean, every day, I had to wonder - what if I screwed it up? What if I’d already done something so I couldn’t get back to you?  Once Peg started to decline, it got even harder. But I did it. I kept my promise to you, Buck. I’m here. For you. For always.”   
  
“Yeah?  Good. ‘Cos I ain’t letting you go again.  You’re stuck with me, punk.”   
  
And then their lips touched, ignited, and set them both ablaze.  “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, ‘til the end of the universe, forever and a day.  No place I’d rather be. I love you, Buck.”   
  
Resting his forehead against Steve’s, Bucky smiled.  “Times three thousand and one.”   
  
END

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this story gives you as much solace and comfort as it’s given me. I choose to believe this is canon. And the boys will enjoy their second hundred years together without pain, loss, or separation.
> 
> As always, your comments bring me joy.


End file.
